ACORN Scandal Has Deep Roots

The real scandal is the sickness in policy and philosophy.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is a scandal. Its story has become news lately thanks to some recent BigGovernment.com-sponsored guerrilla journalism. But the problems of ACORN represent a broader and even more scandalous idea: the conventional acceptance of the Left’s self-righteous claim to have a monopoly on all politics, policy, and lifestyles that are good.

In the wake of the video, the Senate — with seven notable exceptions — voted to bar new federal funding for ACORN. But beyond the outrageous seven and the video, this is an opportunity for deeper revelations still.

Federally aided counsel to a pimp and prostitute and pervasive allegations of voter fraud aren’t the worst of it. The reaction that has greeted the furor has been the most disturbing facet of the whole sorry affair. There is a place, a time, and a need for getting to the bottom of the whys and hows of social pathologies. But that time is not while watching an organization that gets federal funding offer help with the sex trafficking of children on YouTube. Yet that was the default position of some on the left on this scandal.

ACORN’s chief executive, Bertha Lewis, would eventually surrender to the demand for atonement and issue a statement saying, “We have all been deeply disturbed by what we’ve seen in some of these videos. I must say, on behalf of ACORN’s board and our advisory council, that we will go to whatever lengths necessary to reestablish the public trust.” But that was only after being on adamant defense.

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